"If that would please you."

Chione stood, her slender legs, the V between, near his face now. His heartbeat sped back up again.

Luka forced himself to look up at her face.

Her eyes sparkled. "You please me very much. I will see you soon. I'm going to pick a flower for your hair."

Grinning, Luka brushed his hand through his hair that was longer by far than it had ever been. "How about some scissors?"

"Tonight, my new friend."

Shaking his head, Luka admitted, there were a few things he liked here.

Mal brewed coffee and opened up the bag she'd stopped for on her way home. If she was suspended, with pay at least, she was going to indulge. She reached into the bag and put the contents on a big platter she'd laid on her small table and just stared at it. Six large round donuts, icing-filled and chocolate-covered. Diet busters.

Good start. Hot coffee and pastries should help her get through the rest of the day and the night to come while she worried about Luka.

Only she wasn't really that worried about Luka. It puzzled her that she wasn't ape-s.h.i.t crazy searching for him. He was the brother she never had, and as much family as her father, she should be bulldozing every building in L.A. searching for him. And yet something inside of her remained calm, like she knew that he was okay, like everything was as it should be. She didn't think she would find him, but she didn't know why.

Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs that threatened her sanity, Mal picked up the platter and carried it to the sofa. When the coffee was ready, she poured a big mug to the rim and turned on the television that was lucky to be turned on once a month.

After three donuts and two mugs of coffee, Mal felt worse. Exhausted, confused, sad, lonely...she didn't understand what was wrong with her. Something was, though, because since she got back to L.A., she hadn't felt right.

She finally gave in to the exhaustion and closed her eyes. Sleep came fast, a white emptiness that felt comforting. Then he arrived, a shadow on a bright wall, male, big, and covered a naked Mal lying in the whiteness on a shiny floor with his warm body. The dark, shadowy hands slid over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then down, down, until he pulled her legs apart, and the shadow dived into her, a scalding tongue reaching halfway to her soul, buried between her legs. She woke abruptly, breathing as if she'd run a ten-miler. Oh, G.o.d, she was bone-deep tired. She just needed sleep.

Mal pressed the off b.u.t.ton on her remote and went into her bedroom to drop dramatically onto her bed. She released a long, loud sigh and pulled her pillow up under her head into a tight ball. Within minutes, she'd fallen asleep as easily as she had on the sofa.

The dreams came again immediately, this time in full color, the most vivid of her life. A beautiful beach at night with a nearly full moon, the shadow from before now a man walking beside her, a perfect dream lover, tall, extraordinarily well built, already naked as a dream lover should be, very well hung, too perfect to actually exist! He led her onto the beach and removed her clothes slowly, then made love to her, there on the soft sand, so intimate for a woman afraid of intimacy. But she was safe in dreams, so she let herself love this man, let him inside her, crawled inside of him. She let him touch her heart, and that had never happened before. Not even in a dream.

Intense emotion drove her from the dream. She sat up, her hand to her belly, which felt weird, as if something moved inside of her.

Ahhh. Those d.a.m.n donuts must be attacking her. She groaned.

Six at once! As if she didn't know better. Between the belly ache and the erotic dream, the last place Mal wanted to be right now was in bed. Normally, she'd down a hot coffee, but her stomach felt too off for even that, so she drew a tall gla.s.s of clear, cool water and sat on her sofa with her feet pulled up. What had gone so wrong with her life? Why was she so out of it?

Luka. He'd always been her rock, the one that kept her grounded and stable. He was gone and somehow, she knew he wasn't coming back. How could she know that? And if she did, why wasn't she devastated?

When the doorbell chimed, it startled her so much she just sat and looked at the door, a hand to her chest.

"Mal, are you there? It's Bev, Mal, I'm worried about you. Mal?"

d.a.m.n it, what was wrong with her that she was jumping at every little thing?

Mal hurried to the door, released the deadbolt, and slid off the chain to open it wide.

Bev had a sympathetic smile that made Mal want to barf. She turned away, but left the door open as an invitation.

Entering, Bev closed the door behind her.

"Hi, honey. How are you doing? The Captain told me he'd sent you home."

"I'm okay. I think. Maybe. I don't know. My partner and dearest friend is missing and I know it's likely he's dead. Yet somehow I think he's not. And somehow, I think he's okay. But I know he isn't ever coming home. And I feel like s.h.i.t!" Mal looked up at Bev finally. "And I ate 6 supersized creme-filled donuts!"

"Oh, babe. You're on a sugar high with all the other emotional trauma running through you. You need to sleep, baby girl."

"I can't. All I do is dream of this s.e.xy man f.u.c.king my brains out."

"Dreams sometimes manifest what we need."

Mal threw a pillow at her. "Bev, I don't know where to go from here. The Captain wants me to go to my mother's house in Hawaii."

"Where's it located?"

"On Molokai. It's isolated, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. I haven't been there since she died. My father is supposed to meet me there. I'm not sure I'm ready to spend time with him again. And I can't find peace with Luka. I told you, I'm screwed up in the head about him. I don't know why I'm not terrified that he's dead. Canzone promised to kill him and, Bev, he might have."

"Look, you can't know what happened to him. You can't find him in your condition. You've been traumatized. I think you're experiencing a mild form of PTSD. I think the Captain is right. For your safety, and so that you can put your mind at rest and really get well, you need to disappear and just take care of yourself."

Bev scooted closer to Mal and brushed back her wild, disheveled hair. "Would you like me to go with you?"

"I'm not a child, Bev. I can take care of myself. And, yes, please, if you could, I would love you to come. I need you, my friend."

Although she considered herself a mountain of strength, Bev wasn't surprised that, even with all of her training and responsibilities, this strong, independent woman she'd befriended brought tears to her eyes. There was just something so vulnerable about a woman who defended the world the way Mal did, and had no idea how to live in it.

"I'll go home and pack. Why don't you book us two first cla.s.s tickets? Here, use my name and this credit card. I have a lot of unused frequent flyer miles. Let's go tonight. They usually have first cla.s.s seats available at short notice prices. I'm actually excited! I've never been to Hawaii!"

Mal smiled. "It really is paradise. You'll love it. Okay, let's do it. I'll call you when I'm ready."

Bev left, closing the door firmly. Mal stood in the middle of her apartment, the phone in her hand, and knew that she had forgotten something important.

Jeffrey Kordalis wondered how this was going to go in the end. He was almost certain that Luka was dead. No one had found anything at all, and Canzone was locked up tighter than a vacuum seal, protected from everything the police department wanted to do.

Everything that he'd worked so hard for was getting f.u.c.ked up by a man too powerful and too corrupted to touch.

All he wanted at this moment was to make sure Mal was safe. He hoped like h.e.l.l Bev could convince her to go.

A large bottle of Maker's Mark lay in the bottom desk drawer, mostly abandoned, but tonight, he needed a stiff drink. The office was empty, everyone putting in more than their shift, but he wasn't going home tonight. Somehow, he felt closer to his missing officer right here, right now, in this place where he'd last seen Luka Huerta.

G.o.d, he prayed he was wrong.

He glanced again at the bottle, and reached into the drawer.

Chapter 9.

The place looked just like she remembered it.

Mal paused before she walked up the stone steps that led to the doorway.

"It's pretty," Bev said.

"It's a piece of heaven. Wait until you see the view from the back. Breathtaking doesn't even come close. I played there until I was in school, and then rushed home and burst out onto that deck the second I got back. Mom laughed at me almost every day."

"You have good childhood memories," Bev said, but it was more of an inquiry. She noticed that Mal didn't answer right away.

They continued to the door, where Mal entered a key and pushed it wide.

Bev understood immediately as they stepped inside.

A large room with a long gla.s.s wall faced them. The sea beyond the gla.s.s wall pulled her across the room right behind Mal, past sheet-covered furniture, where they both just stared for several seconds.

"Wow," Bev said softly.

"Very happy memories," Mal finally said.

Mal glided the sliding gla.s.s doors aside and they both stepped out to a strong, cool breeze that shoved past them into the room that had been closed up for over a decade.

"I can't believe you left."

Mal looked at Bev. "I didn't. My father did, and I was still a child, so I had no choice. Once, I asked if we could come back. He had been drinking, and he was usually more mellow then, so I asked him if we could go home. He looked at me and said, 'As soon as your mother does, we will too.' I never asked again."

"I'm sorry, Mal. Your mother sounds amazing."

"She was the prettiest, funniest, smartest person I've ever known. I've never stopped missing her. I never will."

Bev put an arm around Mal as they both watched a sailboat in the distance.

"Neither has your father, obviously."

Mal shook her head. Then pulled back to look at Bev.

"We should get the groceries in. I'll go back down for some ice in a little while. The grocery store at the bottom of the road is small, but they have basics. A lot of booze. I think I'll pick up some bottles so we can entertain ourselves."

"Is your father really coming?"

"He said he is. I won't be surprised either way."

"Where should I put the luggage?"

"There are only two bedrooms." Mal walked into one of the bedrooms with Bev behind her. "We'll use this room and share. We never had beds, so I'll make us a roomy pallet. Dad will take the other one if he comes." Mal paused. "This was the room he shared with my mother. I doubt he'd want to sleep here."

Bev nodded and carried the two small suitcases in as Mal carried several cloth bags with groceries into the small kitchen.

She thought she would be overwhelmingly sad, coming back after all of these years, her mother long gone. But something inside of her belly was thrilled to be home, and she put a hand to her chest.

"I'm home, mom," she whispered.

An hour later, lying on the deck, Bev rolled the ice around in her gla.s.s.

"This deck is incredible. What is it, thirty, forty, feet long?"

"Fifty-two. Mom wanted it as long as possible, and it was as wide as they could make it without cutting into the rock."

"Outstanding. I think I would have loved your mother."

"Everyone did. That's another reason the deck was so big. The house is small, but we had big parties. Over there, near that cutout, see? That's where we would dive into the sea."

"What? That's ridiculous!"

"We were daredevils back then. It was a wonderful way to grow up."

"May I ask? How did she die?"

"Nothing remarkable. Breast cancer. So far along when they found it, she never got a chance to fight. It seems like they told her she had it, and before I could blink, we were saying goodbye. She died in the room where we're sleeping."

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry."

Mal smiled and took a sip of wine. "It's okay. Really, I feel better now than I have since..." She trailed off, then looked at Bev. "Maybe since I left. I don't know, but it's serene here. I think this is exactly what I needed."

That tickle welled up from her belly again and she put her hand against the bare skin above her bikini bottoms.

"My tummy is certainly happy. It's like I have b.u.t.terflies, but happy b.u.t.terflies, since we landed at the airport."

"I'll drink to that," Bev said, and took another long sip, then dropped back to rest against the back of her lounger.

"Let's just stay here," she sighed, her eyes closed.

"Sure. We'll write novels and live off the land," Mal agreed.

"Historical romances, right?"

"Hot, s.e.xy thrillers that sizzle. With vampires," Mal followed up, and felt a little odd.

Bev opened her eyes. "I didn't know you read fantasies."

"Vampires aren't fantasies," Mal said suddenly, then blinked at herself.

Bev laughed. "Okay, girl, one more bottle of wine, and I'm cutting you off!"

Mal laughed too. Both women laid back and watched the star-filled sky. Mal wondered why the h.e.l.l she'd said that, and why the h.e.l.l she really believed it was true.

IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Ahmose set Eras aside as Starla brought him another plate.